Interesting catch 22

[droidamus2]

In reading on Media Matters they expressed the idea that the election of President Obama indicates that the voters of this country approve of progressive solutions to 'the countries problems'. This brought to mind a possible Catch 22 for the Democrats and this is how it goes. The Republicans/Conservatives get into office and screw things up enough to piss of the general electorate who then turn to the Democrats/Progressives to solve the problems. The Democrats/Progressives then, a la Clinton, come in using progressive ideas to solve the problems. The electorate then becomes fat and happy and complacent and become more susceptible to overtures from the right wing on social issues and scare tactics which causes them to give the Republicans/Conservatives another chance because they agree with them on some of this stuff. In this scenario the catch 22 is that the Progressive/liberals success is their downfall. Voters only look to the progressives to solve the problems once they perceive the problems are under control they revert to a more conservative stance.

[dems_rightnow]

1. Let's hope not

But the idea that conservatism is dead because of this election... not so. The pendulum does swing, and will likely return to the other side sometime.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. That's the pattern exactly.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. People will be more than aware which party it was that led them over the cliff.

Don't you worry about that.

[geckosfeet]

5. In eight or twelve years they will forget. Always do.

[moondust]

4. It happened in 2000.

Too many voters foolishly gambled on nothing more than a familiar political name rather than sticking with proven success. We now know the consequences. Never let them forget it!

[droidamus2]

6. Possible solutions

I see three possible ways to get around the Catch 22. Either take the incremental approach and try to drag the electorate slowly to the left. This approach makes it hard for the right wing to use scary tactics like yelling 'socialist' or 'communist' all the time but if for some other reason you lose control of the government you have lost your chance to implement some of the programs you wanted.
The other approach would be to push as much progressive legislation as you can through early in the administration so all of the pain and attacks are felt then and then hope by the time the next election comes around the programs are working and people are accepting them. The third approach is sort of a combo where you would push for progressive programs and then sort of pull back to the center for awhile to preempt the conservatives claiming you are going too far left. Then you would just continue in that cycle of jump left return to center.

One thing many of us seem to get lost in is that not a liberal ideas are perfect as not all conservative ideas are perfect. The idea is to determine and use what works.